


Auto de fé

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-31
Updated: 2010-01-31
Packaged: 2017-10-11 18:35:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/115633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You're a second-rate sinner, son. Let me make you into a first-rate torturer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Auto de fé

  
Alastair is standing over a bubbling cauldron, poking indifferently at the things in the water, when a little boy appears behind him. He's a beautiful child, round and cherubic and rosy-cheeked, except for the oil-slick black of his eyes.

"Alastair," Lilith's minion says, "we're running out of time. The angels are attacking the gates of Hell. You haven't broken the first seal yet?"

Alastair glances down at the floating mass of viscera that was once Dean Winchester.

"I'm going to have to try harder, then," he says. "We'll have to go where you're all soft and squishy, Dean." The roiling water spits up a bone.

"Get it done," the boy says, and then he disappears.

Alastair snaps his fingers and everything goes white.

 

He can breathe again; his nerves aren't on fire anymore, his eyes are back in his head, and he's standing in... a hallway? Then he hears a familiar hacking cough. Alastair is standing in the doorway. "Do you like it?" he asks.

Dean stares at him, and wonders what new torment he's come up with this time.

"It's a fixer-upper," Alastair says, craning his neck to look up the gleaming mahogany of the stairwell, "but I think we can make something of it."

Dean doesn't look around at the sagging Victorian farmhouse. He's too busy watching Alastair.

"This is home, sonny boy," Alastair says. "Pick any room you like." He smiles and it's not friendly, exactly; it's stretched and awkward like he's embarrassed. It's _uncertain_ , and it's an expression Dean's never seen on Alastair. Alastair never hesitated, never worried. A slip of the knife, after all, is just as painful as the deliberate twist.

Alastair makes a contemplative noise, shrugs, and wanders out of the hall, leaving Dean on his own. The house smells of dust and dirt and fresh paint; there's sun spilling into the hall from open rooms. The first bedroom he reaches is big and bright, with wall-to-wall windows and cheerful yellow wallpaper. There's a bed, and a mismatched wardrobe, and space for a desk. It looks peaceful. It looks safe.

He doesn't realize that he's trembling until he drops down onto the bed. No point in looking around, because this is all going to turn into racks and hooks sooner or later; one room is as bad as the next. Dean looks at his shaking hands, and they're whole and perfect. No missing fingernails, no missing fingers, no signs of wire cutters or razors or rats or thumbscrews. Just his hands. He flexes his fingers and thinks about the time Alastair clipped his flexors.

Alastair's head appears in the doorway and Dean nearly shits himself.

"Settling in?" Alastair asks.

"Fuck off," Dean says. Alastair raises his eyebrows and shrugs, and then, to Dean's utter surprise, leaves. Just like that. Probably to get the garden shears, but the fact that retribution isn't instant and excruciating makes Dean nervous.

He doesn't see Alastair for the rest of the day, or during the night.

He can wait.

 

It isn't until he ventures outside that he realizes what's bothering him. The world outside is real, and perfect- the sun is there, shining in the endless blue sky, and a breeze shakes the aspens in the front yard. They shimmer in the sunlight, a cascade of green and gold suspended in midair. Fields stretch off into the distance, intersected here and there by a road or another house. They could almost be in Kansas, that home that Dean's never known.

It's quiet. No one is screaming, or cursing, or begging, or sobbing. There's no grinding of terrible machinery, no hissing, bubbling pots of hot lead. No whetstones. After thirty years with the cacophony of Hell in his ears, the silence of the prairie makes him feel like he's underwater, or deaf. Dead. He suddenly wants to stab someone, just to hear them scream.

Dean checks the lawnmower. It has blades, and they work. The dark smear of blood on his jeans is almost comforting. It's the only familiar thing here.

He stays up all night, waiting for Alastair to scalp him or find some other, more inventive way of making him hurt. An ant crawls up the wall next to his bed. He smashes it, and then waits for a swarm to follow and eat him alive. But Alastair keeps out of his way, and nothing tries to kill him during the night.

 

"What the fuck is going on?" Dean asks on the third day, when he finds Alastair boiling pasta in the kitchen. It's a nice kitchen, with shining blue tiles and an ancient, solid stove that's so old it probably shouldn't still work.

Alastair clucks. "You're really going to look a gift horse in the mouth?"

"Yes," Dean says instantly.

"It's the end of the world," Alastair says, adding salt to his pasta. "The big boys are fighting for power and it's going to get very _messy_. I don't fancy being shish-kabobbed in the name of Hell - religion is a _terrible_ thing - so I brought us here." He makes a sweeping gesture.

"Why me?" Dean asks him. "I mean, I'm public enemy number one."

Alastair graces him with a sardonic sneer. "Not any more, boyo. And I, hmph, I just _couldn't_ give up on _you_."

They settle into a strange domestic routine. They avoid each other all day. Dean works in the garden because what the fuck else is there to do? He has no idea what Alastair's up to, but he's always back by nightfall, when they sit in the high-ceilinged living room together. They don't talk much, but one night, when the rain is beating on the windows and thunder is rattling the walls, Dean asks about something that's been niggling at him for a while.

"I was a philosopher," Alastair says, rolling the word on his tongue as if he'd been a king. "The first man I broke was the mastermind behind the Spanish Inquisition. I thought I was doing _God's_ work, punishing the wicked for their evils." He closes his eyes. "That's how I took up the knife. Did you know, Dean, we weren't _all_ blood and guts and pain. Some of us thought we were doing good. We're _righteous_ , Dean. Not evil."

"Bullshit," Dean says. Alastair's eyes open, fractionally, and he looks at Dean from under his eyelashes.

"Are you a righteous man, Dean? Gonna show us how it's _done_?"

"I never killed anybody who didn't have it coming to them." Dean says.

The demon smiles lazily. "Believe me, Dean, every soul in Hell had it coming. They've all earned their place - oh, yes, even _you_. We're a _very_ exclusive club."

Dean shakes his head, half-hearted denial. Remembers he'd started laughing after Alastair gouged his eyes out, because all he'd been able to think about was Bloody Mary.

"The fire goes out of it after a while, you know?" Alastair continues, "So you specialize. That's why I'm so _very_ good at what I do - I work on the _real_ monsters."

"I _enjoy_ my work. I bring balance to a world full of sinners. Don't tell me you wouldn't _relish_ some time alone with Azazel. He _killed your family_ , Dean. He's the reason you're here in the first place! Of course, you didn't have the _guts_ to do it right the first time. You couldn't save your Daddy. You couldn't save Sam. You didn't have the _stones_."

The old gut-churning terror chokes Dean's chest and shatters his voice. He can't breathe, he can't _think_ , and for a moment he wants to cry (it wouldn't be the first time, with Alastair), but mostly he just wants to kill the evil, twisted fucker sitting across from him. Alastair looks contemptuous.

"If you don't have the courage to punish those who truly deserve it," he says, " _how_ can you expect to be able to protect your family from the... _little_ things? You're no man. You never were. And you! You of all people had so _many_ opportunities to balance the scale..."

"I swear to God," Dean says, "I'm going to-"

"You don't have the balls!" Alastair snarls. "Get out."

Dean does.

 

He doesn't sleep, though. Instead he sits on the floor and watches the bedroom door. It starts raining around midnight, and the sound of the raindrops tapping on the glass is the most beautiful thing he's heard in thirty years. It's a relief not to have to listen to the strange, fretful silence anymore. Thunder rolls in the distance, sending shockwaves across the sky, and the rain becomes more insistent. He looks up, half-hoping for lightning, and finds a face staring back at him through the window.

It's Jess. It takes him a moment to recognize her. She's bloated with decomposition, her skin gray and sagging, and still charred in places from the fire. Her golden hair is thin and ragged, and her eyes are white and rotten. She's tapping on the window - _tap-tap tap-tap_ \- light and constant, in time with the rain.

No, it's not rain at all. More faces emerge out of the darkness, scarred and distorted by death. Layla, all bones and sad eyes. Max Miller, missing half his head. Andy. Gordon. Bella. Ava. Hendrickson. Ronald Reznick. Sam -

 

The porch creaks underneath his boots. Dean shades his face from the sun and tries to focus. There's something niggling at the back of his mind, and he's been chasing it round and round for days now, to no avail.

Whatever it is, he's got to at least try to get out of here. Alastair is nowhere to be seen, so Dean leaves the yard at a brisk pace and sets out towards the nearest farmhouse. It's an obvious target, but he ought to be able to get _some_ sort of information about this place; anything would be better than nothing. He crosses the road, glances back at the house - no one's watching from inside - and slips into the wheat field. The tall grasses scratch against his arms as he moves through them, leaving red welts and stickers. It's taller than he is, and more vicious than any wheat he's seen before, as if it's been sown with nettles. Thunder cracks far off in the distance, even though there's no rainclouds in sight. He hurries his pace and cuts through the rows, looking for the road that curves through the fields.

The land has completely changed when he finds the road. The farmhouse that he'd been heading for is a tiny dot in the distance, and he wonders how lost he got, in the wheat. There's only one thing he can do, though. Dean walks.

He walks for days. The scenery is monotonous and unchanging, and there are no cars on the road, no signs of life anywhere. The silence is oppressive and heavy. When he turns around to check for cars, his footprints have disappeared. The farmhouse, much to his surprise, seems to be getting closer and closer. He'd almost expected it to be unreachable, a cruel trick played on unsuspecting travelers. Traveler. Singular.

The farmhouse, when he reaches it, is tall and elegant, and there are two quaking aspen trees growing in the yard. Alastair is sitting on the porch step. "Did you have a nice walk?" he calls.

"Where the fuck am I?" Dean asks, stopping just short of the steps.

"Nowhere," Alastair says. "My place. I made it." He grins toothily and spreads his arms to indicate the sweep of the horizon.

"Not... Earth," Dean says, and it's not really a question.

Alastair pauses in the doorway to the house. "You wouldn't want to be on Earth right now anyways, son. The angels have turned it into a wasteland. Oh, you think _demons_ are bad? You should see what the good guys can do!"

Dean shakes his head - Alastair has to be lying. Because - angels? No way. He wonders why Alastair bothered to create the illusion of neighbors, if they're the only ones here.

The demon has cocked his head to the side, and he's squinting at Dean. "What?" he asks.

"Why are there so many houses if no one else lives here?"

" _There are many mansions in my father's house_ ," Alastair says, and then he goes inside.

 

It starts raining and doesn't stop. The road is washed away. Dean's garden is drowned.

"You know, Dean, you're already tarnished," Alastair drawls. "You may as well make the best of it. Show 'em what you think of them."

Dean buries his head in his hands, trying to block out Alastair's voice. Trying to block out the rain, which is driving him a crazy as it taps against the windows.

"Where do you think you're going from here? Certainly not _up_." Alastair's voice hardens. "You've got nothing to lose, Dean. Abso-lutely _nothing._ No one's going to _care_. I'll strap you back onto that rack and torture you for the rest of eternity, but that doesn't help anyone. Evil needs to be punished. You can step up, sonny, or you can waste my time. And I'll have to be very _mean_ , if I think you're wasting my time."

"Fuck off," Dean says, but his voice is shaky.

"You're a second-rate sinner, son. Let me make you into a first-rate torturer. Hmm? You can let it _all_ go. All you have to do is take your rightful place."

 

Dean wakes up screaming that night, dead faces in his mind and ghostly voices in his ears. Moonlight cuts the room into strips and the windows are empty. No one is staring in at him, but Alastair is leaning against the wall, holding a paring knife loosely in his right hand. Dean can't look away from the glint of the blade.

Alastair waits. His face is bland and open, but the menace radiating from his still form poisons the effect, makes him some strange blend of Inquisitor and confessor.

The rain taps insistently on the windows, and the noise of it pounds in Dean's head. The wind rustles in the aspens and he thinks he can hear people screaming his name, whispering to each other, clawing at his window for vengeance -

"I couldn't save them," Dean says. He talks desperately, trying to drown out the rain and the wind. "I couldn't keep Sam alive and God knows I've fucked over a lot of people-"

"Yes," Alastair interrupts him. "A _lot_ of innocent people are dead because of you. But the question is: are you going to _do_ something about it, or were you planning on languishing on the rack for the rest of eternity? Martyrs don't balance the scale, Dean. They don't do _anything_. Are you going to sit there and torture yourself, or are you going to take it out on some deserving souls?"

Thunder rumbles outside; the host of Heaven is advancing on the ramparts of Hell. The windows burst open in a sudden gust of wind, and Dean's eyes snap to the side. The Kansas wheat fields are sodden with blood and bile, and a newly fallen soul is sprawled belly down in the mud.

"Who is he?" Dean asks.

"Someone very, _very_ nasty," Alastair says. He proffers the knife with a smile. "Go get 'em, Tiger."


End file.
